Illinois county to pay ACLU $600K after high court voids eavesdropping law

ACLU sued state lawyer for prosecuting cases in violation of First Amendment.

In 2012, Illinois saw a rash of cases involving the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, which forbade making audio or visual recordings of people without explicit consent from everyone in the recording. In practice, the law made recording on-duty police officers a felony in the state. The prosecutions of citizens that ensued prompted the ACLU to challenge the state's Eavesdropping Act, and it was eventually ruled unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds in the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In November 2012, the US Supreme Court denied a request from a Chicago-based prosecutor to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision, letting it stand.

That victory for defendants who were charged with violating the Act has helped the ACLU in similar cases. In 2010, the group brought a case against Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who had been prosecuting ACLU staff members for recording on-duty police officers. The Northern Illinois District Court judge overseeing the case ruled that in light of the higher courts' decisions, Alvarez may not charge anyone else with violating the Eavesdropping Act. And now this month, the judge ruled that Cook County taxpayers must foot the $645,549 legal bill the ACLU racked up prosecuting the county's state prosecutor. The payment of that penalty will be finalized at a Cook County board meeting on Wednesday of next week, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

“The Illinois Eavesdropping Act... violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as applied to the open audio recording of the audible communications of law enforcement officers (or others whose communications are incidentally captured) when the officers are engaged in their official duties in public places,” a January ruling [PDF] by Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman read. “Defendant Anita Alvarez, in her official capacity as Cook County State’s Attorney, is permanently enjoined from enforcing the Illinois Eavesdropping Act against the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and its employees or agents who openly audio record the audible communications of law enforcement officers (or others whose communications are incidentally captured) when the officers are engaged in their official duties in public places.”

In March of 2012, an Illinois judge ruled that the Eavesdropping Law was unconstitutional in a case involving 60-year old artist Christopher Drew, who was charged with a Class 1 felony for recording audio of his interaction with police. (Drew died of lung cancer in May.) In a similar case, Indiana woman Tiawanda Moore was acquitted in 2011 of eavesdropping when she made a recording of police officers who were trying to get her to drop a sexual harassment complaint.

See, I can see such a law regarding things like phone calls or video conferences.

But the police, while acting in an official capacity, shouldn't have any expectation of privacy. Similar any other public servant.

To me, it's kinda like the fact that my employer has security cameras up: if I don't like it, I can work elsewhere. Same with public servants: if you don't like increased scrutiny while at work, find another job.

I will grant exceptions will be necessary, for example narc officers would, by nature of their job, need to remain anonymous. There just needs to be some third party oversight for such situations to monitor for abuses.

If you don't like paying out court settlements for unconstitutional laws written by your elected representatives, I guess you need to vote more carefully next time, Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see the morons who wrote the legislation and voted for it have their wages and pensions seized to pay. But you do have the power to fire them every once and a while. And if the voters roll over and go back to sleep instead, I guess they get what they deserve.

Those taxpayers just got screwed twice, wheres the justice? Would have been more just to dock 50k from the states attorney for the next 12 years.

The State's attorney didn't write the law.

If you don't agree with a law and you're in a position to enforce it, if you don't openly state that you don't agree, you should be held responsible if it comes to be found that the law is "unlawful".

Enforcing unethical/unconstitutional/whatever laws should have the enforcers held liable, plus the people who pass the laws, and especially the people who propose the laws.

You want every officer of every state to act as his own lawyer? That would lead to a lot of spotty, unprofessional and selective enforcement. Not a good idea. If an officer believes the law is unconstitutional, there should be a means for him to challenge it without losing his job.

You want every officer of every state to act as his own lawyer? That would lead to a lot of spotty, unprofessional and selective enforcement. Not a good idea. If an officer believes the law is unconstitutional, there should be a means for him to challenge it without losing his job.

Sucks when taxpayers have to foot the bill for so much bullshit in the U.S. I bet only a small portion of taxes actually go towards something productive and worthwhile.

The ACLU should give the money back to taxpayers of the state somehow.

Why would they do that? They spent the money on legal fees to dispute an unconstitutional law. It's not a windfall, and they aren't coming out ahead. They didn't write the law, they didn't pass the law, and they didn't elect the people who did, they didn't stubbornly defend a blatantly rotten law all the way to the Supreme Court. Why should they be the ones out 600k?

And this is nothing compared to the kind of shit the Southern states routinely pull.

What kind of idiotic comment is this? Are you butthurt because you live in Illinois, so you want to defend Illinois (whose blatantly unconstitutional law is unlike any other in the US) by pointing out that unnamed "southern" states have done other things that are worse?

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

It's hilarious how easy it is to discern people's political leanings just from how they talk about Chicago and the ACLU.

And this is nothing compared to the kind of shit the Southern states routinely pull.

I too am interested in hearing which southern states routinely pull unconstitutional shit?I think your thinking of the civil war period and the carpetbaggers after the war.You remember those carpetbaggers who came down from the north.

Quote:

It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders. Together with Republicans they are said to have politically manipulated and controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and power gains.

And this is nothing compared to the kind of shit the Southern states routinely pull.

What kind of idiotic comment is this? Are you butthurt because you live in Illinois, so you want to defend Illinois (whose blatantly unconstitutional law is unlike any other in the US) by pointing out that unnamed "southern" states have done other things that are worse?

What Illinois has been doing is plenty bad.

I'm making the point Illinois is not the only group pulling this bullshit.Really? Unnamed? Try Arizona, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, etc.They are all spending taxpayer money fighting the federal government over shit they know are they going to lose.

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

It's hilarious how easy it is to discern people's political leanings just from how they talk about Chicago and the ACLU.

And this is nothing compared to the kind of shit the Southern states routinely pull.

I too am interested in hearing which southern states routinely pull unconstitutional shit?I think your thinking of the civil war period and the carpetbaggers after the war.You remember those carpetbaggers who came down from the north.

Quote:

It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders. Together with Republicans they are said to have politically manipulated and controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and power gains.

Am I the only one who doesn't see the logic in this? A prosecutor's job is to, well, prosecute. It is the legislature's job to write constitutionally valid laws, and the Supreme Court's job to decide the constitutionality of said laws. We have this separation of duties for very good reasons, and they are codified in the constitution itself. How can you punish a prosecutor for failing to do the job of the Supreme Court? Do we really want random lawyers playing judge, jury, and executioner? Believe me, I've met some pretty damn immature federal prosecutors.

In an ideal world, all laws passed would be vetted by the Supreme Court before taking effect, but that's obviously impractical. While the laws are on the books, they must be enforced. However, I would support giving the courts the ability to retroactively reverse any damages caused by a law that is later found unconstitutional. Further, the constitution does not give the courts any means for punishing lawmakers who pass blatantly unconstitutional laws, beyond just striking the law down. IMO, that's a major failing of our constitution, but that's neither here nor there.

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

What are the 99.99% of things you don't agree with? Religious freedom such as protecting the right to use state parks for baptisms? Freedom of assembly for minority viewpoint groups? What exactly does the ACLU do that so riles conservatives?

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

What are the 99.99% of things you don't agree with? Religious freedom such as protecting the right to use state parks for baptisms? Freedom of assembly for minority viewpoint groups? What exactly does the ACLU do that so riles conservatives?

Fights the federal government for trying to enforce Christianity and Christian morals.

To the people putting forth the idea that the tax payer is the one who suffers: Please keep in mind that it was the tax payers, as a voting block, who freely elected the officials who put the eavesdropping law in place. If you allow a bum into office, you pay for their mistakes. That's representative government, by definition.

Of course, by that mindset, by the time we finally knock down the Patriot Act and assess the damage, the proportionate payback against the US government and its tax payers should rightly be in the quadrillions of dollars...

Those taxpayers just got screwed twice, wheres the justice? Would have been more just to dock 50k from the states attorney for the next 12 years.

The State's attorney didn't write the law.

If you don't agree with a law and you're in a position to enforce it, if you don't openly state that you don't agree, you should be held responsible if it comes to be found that the law is "unlawful".

Enforcing unethical/unconstitutional/whatever laws should have the enforcers held liable, plus the people who pass the laws, and especially the people who propose the laws.

This is a very naive and idealistic approach to government.

If this were the way things worked, public servants would gain a whole lot of leeway in what they could and could not do.

Ultimately the responsibility for the effects of laws like these fall on the shoulders of the voters, not the public servants doing their jobs. You're asking these possibly untrained people to pass constitutional judgement on laws (a process that takes the judicial system in this country years) and then punish them if their analysis of those laws didn't match that of the years-long court cases.

They're not meant to be legislators and constitutional professionals, they're meant to be enforcers. If your hand reconsidered all the decisions your brain sent to it, you're going to have some problems.

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

It's hilarious how easy it is to discern people's political leanings just from how they talk about Chicago and the ACLU.

And this is nothing compared to the kind of shit the Southern states routinely pull.

I too am interested in hearing which southern states routinely pull unconstitutional shit?I think your thinking of the civil war period and the carpetbaggers after the war.You remember those carpetbaggers who came down from the north.

Quote:

It was used as a derogatory term, suggesting opportunism and exploitation by the outsiders. Together with Republicans they are said to have politically manipulated and controlled former Confederate states for varying periods for their own financial and power gains.

Seeing southern people refer to "carpetbaggers" with sincerity has the same sort of basis in reality as the Nazis blaming the jews for controlling banks and finances in post-WWI Germany. It's a boogyman diversion tactic to unify a defeated people and gain solidarity against an abstract human mold, a classic "them versus us" mentality. A guy from the north, coming down to make money where opportunity rests, is the bad guy? Malarky.

Does anyone know if this will affect the laws of other states such as Nevada that outlaw audio recording without the consent of everyone recorded.

The case can be cited by the defense attorney. Courts pay a lot of attention to precedent. That the SCOTUS refused to take the case usually means the conclusion of the previous court is considered sound (regardless of whether you agree) and takes the force of law.

Someone at the ACLU had been channelling Sean Connery: They pull an appeal to the US Supreme Court, you pull the First Amendment. They try to prosecute ACLU staff members, you present the North Illinois District Court with your legal bill. That's the Chicago way. And that's how you defend civil liberties.

I live in the downstate part of "The People's Republic of Illinois." This is the sort of laws and behavior that we have come to expect from Chicago.

99.99% of the time, I don't agree with the ACLU. This time, they got something right.

Trust me, Chicago wants you in a separate state probably more than you do. Downstate IL is getting too expensive to continue subsidizing.

Its not southern Il that costs us, its the collar counties of Chicago that are leaching money and services. They want urban levels of services, but dont have the density, and are unwilling to pay their fair share of tax burdo s to afford it.

Without quoting people five deep, let me say that the very best way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it. That's how bad laws get overturned. (Of course, one need not be too much of a jerk about it.)

The laws that scare me are the bad ones that are not enforced. They're sitting there on the books, waiting to trap the unwary.